1. Field of the Invention
Methods and apparatuses consistent with the present invention relate to an apparatus and method for providing domain information, and more particularly, to providing information about a domain when a device intends to join the domain.
2. Description of the Related Art
CORAL is a technology for improving interoperability between digital rights management (DRM) technologies, and the CORAL consortium was established for this purpose. CORAL is described in more detail at the coral-interop.org website.
Further, the concept of a “domain”, which represents a logical set of multiple devices, is presented in CORAL, and there is a domain-management server that manages such a domain. The domain-management server is also called a domain manager. The domain is described in detail in “Core Architecture V3.0” and “Ecosystem V1.0” of the CORAL specification.
The domain-management server manages domains so that each of the devices belongs to a certain domain according to specified rules, and content can be shared between devices belonging to the same domain.
The method involving a device joining a domain is described with reference to FIG. 1 in the following.
First, it is assumed that there is a first device 110 in domain A. If a second device 120 intends to join domain A, the second device 120 connects to a domain-management server 140, receives information about domain A from the domain-management server 140, and sets up the environment using the received information.
Here, the information about domain A includes the type, function, and identification information of the device included in domain A, and can include information about the domain-management server 140 such as the network address (e.g., a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) address) of the domain-management server 140 managing domain A.
Further, the domain-management server 140 can perform the authentication on the second device 120, and a substitute-authentication device 130 can separately exist within domain A. If there is a substitute-authentication device 130, information of domain A can include information of the substitute-authentication device 130 (e.g., the type, function and identification information of the device).
Likewise, according to the related art, in order for a device to join a domain, information about the domain, that is, domain information should be set up, and for this, the device should connect to a separate domain-management server and receive domain information.
However, in order for a user to connect to a domain-management server using a device, the user should directly input the address of the domain-management server using an input means attached to the device, or retrieve the stored address of the domain-management server.
In the case where a device such as a notebook computer or a personal computer has a means for inputting letters, it is easy to connect to the domain-management server, but in the case where the device includes only a four-way key or an inconvenient input means, it is difficult to connect to the domain-management server.
Further, because the device should have a wired or wireless communication function for connecting to the domain-management server, a device having no such function cannot join the domain, which is a problem.
Therefore, there is a need for a method where devices having an inconvenient interface for connecting to a domain-management server or having no wired or wireless internet function can conveniently join a domain.